We investigated how the level of variance in students' prior knowledge may have influenced their collaborative interactions and science learning in small groups. We examined learning outcomes from 102 groups from seven science teachers' classes and discourse from two contrasting groups: Homogeneous versus heterogeneous. We examined individual and…

Mathematics reading and spatial ability are important learning components in mathematics education. However, in traditional instruction, it is difficult to develop learners' mathematics reading and spatial abilities. Therefore, many students struggle to understand real-world problems and lack the spatial ability to form internal imagery. To cope…

This study aimed to explore and compare the instructional practices and classroom interactions of teachers within the Chinese junior high school context who had correspondingly high or low expectations for all their students. Eight junior high school teachers and their 32 lessons were observed. Results of classroom observations revealed that high…

The current study investigated the effects of interactive picture-book read-alouds on middle school EFL students' word inference ability and attitudes toward reading in English. To this end, two classes of seventh-grade students from a public middle school in Taiwan participated and were randomly divided into two groups: an interactive…

This article examined the role of environmental interaction in interdisciplinary thinking and the use of different knowledge resource types. The case study was conducted with two classes (N = 40) of 8th-grade students, ages 13 to 14. The outdoor trail aimed to help students synthesize history, geography, and science knowledge. Two groups'…

Conceptions of ecological processes such as the flow of energy and cycling of matter in an ecosystem are increasingly important understandings in a rapidly changing world. This study utilizes a p-prims, or knowledge in pieces, lens to examine understandings and disconnections in students' conceptualizations of energy flow and matter cycling…

This paper reports on a participatory action research project which used videogames as the central texts for play and study in a middle-years English classroom in Australia. Ongoing questions about the nature of subject English have often focused on the discipline's ability to accommodate twenty-first century literacies. Videogames, as…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of representation sequences and spatial ability on students' scientific understandings about the mechanism of breathing in human beings. 130 seventh graders were assigned to two groups with different sequential combinations of static and dynamic representations: SD group (i.e., viewing…

This study addresses the problem of mathematics teachers' resistance to problem-solving models that align with constructivist perspectives because they feel pressure to utilize more teaching approaches that focus on preparing students for high-stakes tests. The purpose of this qualitative study was to explain how ninth grade mathematics students…

The aim of this study is to know the differences of enhancement in mathematical problem solving ability (MPSA) between the students who received soft skill- based metacognitive learning (SSML) with the students who got conventional learning (CL). This research is a quasi experimental design with pretest-postest control group. The population in…

Enabling learning through meaningful classroom experiences has always been a challenge for teachers. Bringing about a balance of the "conceptual" and the "hands-on", along with contextual embeddedness in problem-solving situations, broadly characterises the experience of development and trials of three Design and Technology…

The students' difficulty which was found is in the problem of understanding, drawing diagrams, reading the charts correctly, conceptual formal mathematical understanding, and mathematical problem solving. The appropriate problem representation is the basic way in order to understand the problem itself and make a plan to solve it. This research was…

The influence of prior knowledge and cognitive development on the effectiveness of iconic representations in science visualizations was examined. Middle and high school students (N = 186) were given narrated visualizations of two chemistry topics: Kinetic Molecular Theory (Day 1) and Ideal Gas Laws (Day 2). For half of the visualizations, iconic…

In the past two decades, the role of language in the science curriculum has become prominent in science education literature. From a constructivist perspective, language mediates social interaction and meaning is constructed as learners interpret and reinterpret events through the lens of prior knowledge. This perspective applied to the science…

For the thirty-seventh year, the Research and Theory Division and the Division of Instructional Design of the Association for Educational Communications and Technology (AECT) sponsored the publication of these Proceedings. Papers published in this volume were presented at the annual AECT Convention in Jacksonville, Florida. This year's Proceedings…